Huawei Mate 9 vs iPhone 7 Plus: Which is best for me?

What’s the difference between the Huawei Mate 9 and Apple’s iPhone 7 Plus, two mighty mobile phones that boast excellent performance, best-in-class cameras and some premium specs? Here’s our full Huawei Mate 9 vs iPhone 7 Plus comparison review so you can tell which is best for you.

Huawei just launched the massive Mate 9 mobile in Munich, and this 5.9-inch beast packs a seriously impressive dual-lens camera just like Apple’s iPhone 7 Plus. The Mate 9 and iPhone 7 Plus also share some other features, including a mighty HD display, a powerful processor and a gorgeous eye-catching design.

So, what is actually the difference between the Mate 9 and Apple’s iPhone 7 Plus, beyond the fact that one runs iOS and the other is Android? Here’s our comparison review for the full skinny.

Huawei Mate 9 vs iPhone 7 Plus: Specs at a glance

Phone

iPhone 7 Plus

Huawei Mate 9

Screen size

5.5-inches

5.9-inches

Screen resolution

Full HD 1920×1080

Full HD 1920×1080

Fingerprint sensor?

Yes

Yes

Water resistant?

Yes

No

OS

iOS 10

Android 7.0 Nougat

Processor

Apple A10 Fusion

Kirin 960

Memory

3GB

4GB

Storage

32/128/256GB

64GB

MicroSD?

No

Yes (Up to 2TB)

Battery

2900mAh

4000mAh

Rear camera

12-megapixel

12-megapixel & 20-megapixel

Front camera

7-megapixel

8-megapixel

Price

From £719

£TBC

Huawei Mate 9 vs iPhone 7 Plus: Design and features

Both of these mobiles are on the big side, proving rather difficult to use with just the one hand. You’ll definitely need to clutch the Mate 9 and the iPhone 7 Plus with one mitt and use your other to poke and swipe the screen, or your precious phone will probably slip from your grasp. They’re both quite hefty too, so you’ll certainly feel them when they’re stashed in your pocket.

Huawei’s Mate 9 packs an attractive brushed metal unibody design, available in two different colours here in the UK: silver/white, or dark grey. However, Apple offers more choice with its iPhone 7 Plus. You can pick the iPhone up in a few different shades, with a similar matte metal finish. You can also grab the 7 Plus with a shiny gloss finish, although only in black. Be warned, this gloss model scratches up rather easily.

Both phones boast a fingerprint sensor for securing your personal data, but Huawei’s Mate 9 phone isn’t water-resistant. The iPhone 7 Plus is fully water-resistant so it can survive a dunking, making it your best choice if you want something to fiddle with in the bath. So to speak.

Huawei Mate 9 vs iPhone 7 Plus: Screen and media

Both phones here also boast a massive Full HD screen, although the Huawei Mate 9 has a bigger 5.9-inch panel compared with the 5.5-inch iPhone 7 Plus. That technically means that the iPhone’s display is sharper, but you’ll struggle to notice the difference unless you really squint.

The iPhone 7 Plus’ display produces true-to-life images thanks to its wide colour gamut. Meanwhile the Mate 9 can also produce accurate colours, or you can manually boost the vibracy in the display settings for more punchy hues.

Both phones also have a blue filter mode, for an easy-on-the-eye viewing experience at night.

If you’ve got a massive media collection, either phone would do you. The iPhone 7 Plus comes with up to 256GB of built-in storage space, although sadly there’s no microSD memory card support so you can’t expand this any more. And if you want a model with lots of storage, you’ll have to pay extra for it.

By comparison, the Mate 9 only comes with 64GB of built-in storage. However, Huawei’s phone also supports memory cards, so you can boost this to 2TB at a small cost.

Huawei Mate 9 vs iPhone 7 Plus: Cameras

A key feature of both of these phones is the dual-lens rear camera.

The Huawei Mate 9 sports a 12-megapixel lens and a bonus 20-megapixel monochrome lens, which work together to produce sharp, detail-packed photos or home movie footage. You also get some impressive bokeh (background blur) when shooting subjects up-close, in either landscape or portrait mode.

Apple’s iPhone 7 Plus packs dual 12-megapixel snappers, although one of the lenses gives you a 3x optical zoom to get closer to your subject. You can also shoot bokeh photos, but only in portrait mode – and only when Apple finally releases a necessary software update.

On either phone you can shoot up to 4K resolution home movies, with image stabilisation to cut down on judder.

You get an 8-megapixel front-facing camera on the Mate 9 and a 7-megapixel front-facing camera on the iPhone 7 Plus.

Huawei Mate 9 vs iPhone 7 Plus: Performance and battery life

With either phone, you are guaranteed top performance.

Apple has crammed its own A10 Fusion processor inside the iPhone 7 Plus, which gives impressive benchmarking performance. You’ll get a silky smooth experience no matter what you’re up to, even when playing the latest games.

Similarly, the Huawei Mate 9 rocks a chipset of Huawei’s own creation, the Kirin 960. This too offers incredible performance and supports the Vulcan API so you’re able to play with the latest, mobile-testing apps and games.

As for battery life, we manage just over a day of battery life on average with the iPhone. We’re yet to test the Huawei Mate 9 in full, so stay tuned for an update as well as our in-depth Huawei Mate 9 review.

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